Outside Leicester’s Richard III exhibition is a tall, bearded,
distinguished-looking man. What’s his interest, I ask, in the much maligned
king, whose battle-scarred skeleton has been discovered under a car park in
the centre of the East Midlands city.

“My interest? I’ve played him on stage,” Gregory Floy says, nonchalantly. The
former artistic director at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, recalls feeling
a need to get beyond Olivier’s gleefully evil portrayal of Shakespeare’s
villain. “I had a hint of withered arm and the hump came out bigger than I
intended,” he says. “But it’s a fantastic part. The audience hate you but
they’re on your side as well.”

Floy may have put his finger on the public’s love-hate fascination with “the
hunchback under the hatchbacks” as one journalist has neatly put it. Over
the first fortnight of the free exhibition at the medieval Guildhall, more
than 15,000 people peered at photographs of his spine-curved skeleton,
studied his DNA and learnt that his diet included a lot of fish and oysters.

“We’ve had six months’ worth of visitors in two weeks,” curator Laura Hadland
says, understandably cock-a-hoop.

The discovery has led to a great winter for local tourism. Richard III walks
and tours are selling out rapidly, and Leicester Shire Promotions, the
county’s tourism body, has started to market Ricardian short breaks, which
include a night’s B&B and entry to the Bosworth Battlefield
Heritage Centre, near the spot where the King was killed in 1485.

Leicester is buzzing with it all — there are lectures, new plays, concerts of
medieval music, “archery antics” and even a competition to find the best
locally grown white rose (the Yorkists’ badge). Meanwhile, the King’s face
stares impassively from posters across the city, keeping his own counsel.

I retrace Richard’s last journey across the dozen miles of rolling countryside
and quiet villages between Leicester, where he stayed for two nights before
the battle, and Bosworth Field. At the heritage centre, men strut in doublet
and hose and visitors can try on an interactive helmet to see the battle
from a soldier’s perspective (not reassuring). You can also watch hawk
displays, “meet the ferrets” and buy Bosworth fridge magnets.

It may sound like a Wars of the Roses theme park, but the centre’s exhibitions
are absorbing. They put the battle and its era into context, with displays
of weapons and spurs found at Bosworth and an exquisite silver badge of a
boar, Richard’s emblem, unearthed three years ago.

A short walk away is the pyramid-like well where he reputedly drank before the
battle. Someone has left a handful of daffodils as a tribute.

Back in Leicester, Steve Bruce, a Blue Badge guide, leads a tour of places
linked to Richard, some of them on cobbled streets with attractive medieval
corners that you wouldn’t expect here. The King, Bruce says, is “deep in the
city’s psyche”, even if there is a degree of harmless supposition here and
there. After the battle, for instance, his body may or may not have been
brought to St Mary de Castro church, a grand, incense-rich place where
Chaucer may or may not have been married.

We pass the Richard III pub and look in at the Travelodge, said to have been
built on the site of the Blue Boar Inn, where the King stayed. The hotel
chain has cannily offered a free night’s accommodation to anyone sharing his
Plantagenet surname (no takers yet).

Across a dual carriageway is Richard III Road, and alongside is the bridge
from which Richard’s corpse was previously thought to have been dumped in to
the River Soar. A statue of the gaunt king strikes a curious pose, grasping
his crown as though catching a Frisbee.

After the cathedral, housing a 30-year-old memorial tablet to Richard and
likely to be his final resting place, we explore the celebrated car park.
Despite looking like any other car park, it has a fascination. “That’s where
he was found,” Bruce says, “eight feet down, head towards us.”
Extraordinary, really.

Before dinner, I call in at The Last Plantagenet, a Wetherspoon pub. It serves
a special Richard III ale, brewed by Medieval Beers of Nottingham. Stocks
have run out this evening, but it’s described as “a slightly sweet pale ale
with a refreshing citrus finish”. It sounds a winner. That’s my hunch,
anyway.

Need to know

Where to stay
The comfortable Belmont Hotel (01162 544773, belmonthotel.co.uk)
hosts Richard III afternoon teas. It’s in Leicester’s smart New Walk area
and five minutes’ walk from the rail station. Doubles cost from £69.

Where to eat
The Case (011625 1 7675, thecase.co.uk)
is in a former luggage factory. Airy and friendly, it serves imaginative
British-inspired meals with mains from £13.95 to £23.45. The early dinner
menu offers two courses for £16.50 (£20 for three).

Further information
Richard III short breaks cost from £89 for couples, including one-night’s B&B
at a hotel, afternoon tea, a city information pack and entrance to the
Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre. A two-hour Richard III tour with a
Blue Badge guide, joining a group, is £3.50. Book both at Visit Leicester
(0844 8885181, goleicestershire.com).